"You want my house? You can have it. Just take care of my son."
If you have kids, this is going to break your heart.
I'll bet even usually unemotional people will be outraged. I predict they'll feel shame by the thought that this is all status quo and business as usual in the United States.
The corporate media does the bidding of the political class and focuses like a laser on the steroid scandal involving Major League baseball players.
I'm going to tell you about an authentic tragedy involving the family of a baseball coach. It's a story you won't see covered by the media. They're far too busy taking down false idols like Roger Clemens.
A Kossack named Patrizia brought this really tragic baseball story--as opposed to media hyped bullshit--to my attention.
Earlier this week, the high priests of baseball were summoned to Capitol Hill to testify about the (ahem--give me an effing break)national scandal involving the use of steriods and performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball.
Apparently to the losers folks who pollute our Congress, this is a "crisis" worthy of Congressional hearings. I kid you not, this is the kind of crap they consider a priority. Am I missing something?
I'm going to tell you about the infant son of a minor league coach named Charles Montoyo. Alex Montoyo was born October 17 with Ebstein's Anomaly, which is, if you'll forgive me, a major league heart defect. Despite being insured, repairing that defect came with a major league bill.
This is the story of the Montoyo family. But in truth, it could be about almost any American family--except perhaps a Congressional family. This would never happen to the family of a Congressperson or Senator. They're different from us. They've taken very good care of themselves. They don't ever want to walk in our shoes.
It's got to be the worst nightmare of any new parent. A desperately ill newborn baby.
Any parent faced with a critically ill child would bellow the same thing. I have no doubt.
But there's a big problem here. This primal scream of anguish, "You want my house? You can have it. Just take care of my son" , didn't come from one of the 47 million uninsured Americans, it came from the lips of an American father who had health insurance. A father quite literally forced to plead for his child.
Most American families don't have the luxury of worrying about what drugs overpaid baseball stars ingest. But the Congressional fixation on such trivia, just proves how completely out-of-touch these worthless bastards have become. They don't care, and don't have a clue about the dire realities faced by tens hundreds of millions of Americans.
Here's the story of one sick American baby.
Everything is hardest
In a room of persistent and unnerving noise, you shudder at what you do not hear.
The pediatric intensive care unit of the UCLA Medical Center is a marvel of beeps and buzzes, of clatter and commotion. The lights are always on, the staff is forever lurking and the chirping machines never take rest.
It is here, in the bed nearest an emaciated Christmas tree, that 2-month-old Alexander Montoyo begins to cry. His face contorts, his tiny toes curl. His mouth opens and closes, his tongue peeks out and recedes.
And through all of his agitation, this screaming baby does not make a sound.
The ventilator that snakes down Alex's throat prevents any noise from escaping. So the silent cry goes on and on, as Charlie Montoyo stands over the bed and gently pats his son's scarred chest.
And you realize, for the first time, waiting for a miracle is a hard way to live.
Chances are, you do not know Charlie Montoyo, although you may have seen examples of his work.
B.J. Upton and Delmon Young. Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli. Scott Kazmir and James Shields. At one time or another, Montoyo was responsible for getting them all prepared to play major league baseball.
Montoyo has been a Rays minor league manager at every stop in the system, including some that no longer exist. He was in Princeton before he was in Hudson Valley. He was in Charleston on his way to Bakersfield. He was in Orlando and moved with that team to Montgomery. Now, having just finished his 11th season, Montoyo is the manager at Triple-A Durham, putting him, theoretically, a phone call away from the big time.
http://www.sptimes.com/...
For the millionth time, lets review how things work in the richest country on the planet.
- Being "insured" is a guarantee of nothing.
- Bankruptcy due to medical bills is commonplace in the United States even when you're "insured".
- This is because Murder By Spreadsheet for-profit health insurers often refuse to pay for our healthcare treatment. Why not just call this what it is, the great American dance of death.
- Delay, Deny, Deceive, and Defraud is the business model. And yes, I know I sound like a damn broken record.
- So despite being insured, Americans are left holding the bill.
- Our elected representatives turn a blind eye.
Our collective American reality is bleak. Even people like me, privileged to be able to pay outrageous extortion for junk insurance, live in fear. We know, I know, that any one of us is but one medical calamity away from losing everything.
Alex was born in Tucson on Oct. 17 - his father's 43rd birthday - and spent 30 unhurried minutes with his parents before a few routine tests begat the opening lines of a story almost too painful to tell.
Alex was diagnosed with Ebstein's anomaly, a scientific way of saying his heart was practically useless. He had only one functioning chamber in his heart, and so blood was not being pumped in the proper quantity or direction.
Before midnight of his first day of life, doctors decided Alex needed to be airlifted to a children's hospital in Phoenix. So, 11 hours after giving birth, Samantha Montoyo, 33, insisted she be discharged so she could get in a car with Charlie and begin their drive into a nightmare.
What the Montoyos did not know as they rode through the desert toward Phoenix was that Alex already was proving to be stronger than reason. It wasn't until weeks later, when Samantha was sneaking a peek at her son's charts, that she discovered a note written by a cardiologist in Tucson that was given to the transport crew in the helicopter.
It said Alex was not expected to survive the trip.
You talk to Charlie and Samantha about the hardest part of the ordeal, and their responses are never the same.
It is sitting all day in the ICU and watching a baby struggle for breath. It is the constant fear of laying your head on a pillow and not knowing what you may discover on the other side of sleep. It is recognizing the hardship this has placed on their 5-year-old son, Tyson. It is the things they do not know and, worse, the things that they do.
Eventually, you come to a realization.
The hardest part of the ordeal?
It's everything.
"Every day there's something new," Samantha said. "That's the scary part. You're going along fine and then: Wham! Everything changes."
Can you imagine, after spending another day at the hospital, coming home and opening the mail to discover a bill of more than $500,000 the insurance company disputed? Do you panic, knowing this is just the beginning? Do you cry, knowing your future has irretrievably changed? Do you curse, knowing the injustice of it all?
"I don't even think about it," Charlie said. "You want my house? You can have it. Just take care of my son."
[emphasis added]
I'm going to end with this gem from Ed Tubb a former life and health insurance saleman. You never have to believe me, but you might want to read what this guy has to say.
Life & Health INsurance Companies are just soooo DIRTY!
While there’s almost nothing I could conjure that would expunge a drop of the animus I feel for not only George Bush but virtually the entire GOP contingent in government as well as all who voted GOP in 2004 and 2006, and while there’s little positive I would attempt to posit concerning the insurance industry, I would like to offer food for thought on the mess.
In the way of a disclaimer, for 15 years I have been a licensed life and health insurance agent, hawking a variety of insurance company products. . .
The insurance industry is the only one I know where a company earns exponentially more the less and less it provides in exchange for the price charged. . .
The company, to hedge its bet against inordinate loss, cherry picks individual applicants based on the information contained in the application and from its external investigations of the applicant. Adverse selection is the company buying a claim; analogous to selling a fire insurance policy to someone whose house is ablaze. . .Another army is employed simply to deny coverage to a subscriber, whenever and wherever possible. A tactic many companies have resorted to is denying a claim based on a preexisting condition, even if neither the insured nor his or her physician of record had prior knowledge the condition existed!
. . .Look folks, we have a much worse scenario here, under the private insurance paradigm. Armies of clerks fight with America’s medical professionals every day, telling the frustrated physician the recommended treatment will not be covered; "clerks," as in C-L-E-R-K-S! All this administration comes at an exorbitant cost; approximately 30¢ of every premium dollar! And the best the country gets in exchange for substantially higher healthcare costs than anywhere else on earth is a dismal comparison with every other industrial nation on earth; lower birth weights, higher rates for infant and maternal mortality, higher morbidity (disease) rates, shorter life spans. Furthermore, every US company that offers healthcare coverage is at a very serious disadvantage in the global market. No one wins.
http://www.opednews.com/...
Well I wouldn't say no one wins--the insurance company wins. But those days are numbered.
And yes, despite being insured, the Montoyo Family, like many Americans, have resorted to fundraising to help with their medical bills.
When I write about our collapsed system, I frequently ask myself, what would Jerome a Paris think?
Never forget, even insured Americans are only one major illness away from financial catastrophe.